


Lies we tell

by Orlha



Series: Ashes to Ashes [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Darcy Lewis, Canon compliant when it fits, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6323578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlha/pseuds/Orlha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the disaster at Culver, Darcy Cassandra Lewis took the furthest out internship from possibly civilisation and ended up working with Jane. Just when she thinks she’s safe, when she’s free from making the hard choices, she’s faced with reappearance of someone from her past and the appearance of someone new that might know exactly what happened to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This part skips forward quite a bit, it'll be explained more. I recommend reading the prologue but it is pretty much a standalone without any prior knowledge of the series.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this!
> 
> Updating schedule is on my [tumblr](http://luna-orlha.tumblr.com/). For more information about the series, you can read [here](http://luna-orlha.tumblr.com/post/140906066600/ashes-to-ashes-series)

The sun was beating down on her, searing into her skin in a way Darcy never thought was possible. She came from the land of sunny beaches and hot winters but never once that she would have imagined hating the sun. Shifting her hat, she tapped the pencil impatiently on the clipboard. “Janey, I’m sure that there aren’t any stars out at the moment.”

“The stars are always out, it’s just that you can’t see them,” Erik replied. Janey wouldn’t have noticed her question even if she was rammed down by a ninety ton truck, at least not when she’s in one of her science blender modes.

Darcy gazed up at the bright, cloudless blue sky. Oh how the noon sun taunted her.

“So I’ve calculated that based on the timing of each short wave signal and the tessa emission that we’ve been receiving each hour, the cycle has been counting down,” Jane said to Erik. She didn’t understand anything they were saying, she shouldn’t have been the one that out here. Her political science major wasn’t helping her understand anything. Hell, she would have been happy to apply for that internship as a personal assistant or media assistant for Stark Industries. The thought of being in another city curdled in her stomach. After all that had happened she had to get out of the city, out of the claustrophobic spiral of buildings, the endless concrete that only reminded her of what happened. New Mexico sounded as far away from civilization as she could be.

She was not wrong.

Taking a deep breath, Darcy scribbled notes on what Jane and Erik were talking about. She might not fully understand, but she wasn’t stupid. What they were talking about was obviously important.

“We have to come back here tomorrow,” Erik agreed.

“So we’re done here?” she chirped, making her presence known to the two scientists.

Jane turned her eyes to her and motioned for the clipboard which Darcy gladly handed over. Her hands scribbled across the paper with what seemed to be equations, deep in conversation with Erik as they slid into the backseat.

“Yea we’re done? I guess I’m driving?” she jangled the keys and when she got not response, Darcy swung into the front seat. “Yep. Driving.” Her fingers twisting the soft metal in the key slot, the van roared to life, breaking the silence of the desert. “Is Kansas okay with you guys?” No answer. “Just you Darcy. Just you,” she muttered to herself and fiddled with her ipod to break the monotony of the three hour drive.

Funny how she spent twenty one years running from the name Darcy only to change it in her last year. Her name was Cass. Cassandra. She gripped the wheel tightly, maneuvering across the dunes while she fought the rising bile from the back of throat. Her name was Cass until six months ago. Her knuckles turned as she wrestled across the sand dunes, trying to make it back to the lab and trailers without going into another freak out.  

“Calm the fuck down Darcy,” she muttered and flipped to another song, running a hand through her hair. Darcy forced herself to concentrate on the spunks of sand flecking off the side of the car, the loud pinging as they bounced off the metal, the crunch of the sand beneath the tires. It was easy to get lost in the desert had it not been for the ingenious method that Erik had taught her. The compass dangled from the rearview mirror, not that she needed it anymore.

She let the sounds lull her into a state, her head leaning against her hand as she drove them back to the place they did their science. It really was less of a lab and more of some radio station. Darcy didn’t mind it too much. It was better than home had ever been and despite her inability to understand all the sciency jargon that Jane and Erik spoke in, she at least felt welcomed.

Culver was great. It really was.

She pulled up to the radio station, popping the booth open and begun carrying out the instruments.

“No, leave them, Darcy,” Erik told her when she slung several bags across her shoulders. “We’ll be driving back in four hours. Why don’t you take a nap first?”

“Yes boss!” she nodded. Replacing the cap on her head, she made her way to the trailer where she slept. Her little planter plant that she brought from Culver had wilted in the heat of her trailer. Darcy tapped the water feeder with her finger to dislodge any sand.

“There you got, little buddy,” she murmured as water finally dripped into the pot again.

She flopped onto the bed, taking out her phone but abandoned it in favour for the piece of paper in her pocket, carefully unfolding it.

_“Dear Darce,_

_I hope this finds you well.”_

It had been so many years since she saw Francis and even though he wrote yearly, she could barely remember him. He didn’t leave an address to address her mail to, yet somehow he always knew where she was living. Darcy ran a finger across his words. The handwriting had changed over the years. She wondered if he was well. Wondered for just a shred of information.

Then there was Clint Barton.

Since he left four years ago, she had not heard a single word from him - not even the yearly letters the way Francis had. Darcy had known that would have happened. The same damned Big Brother organization ate another person she cared about. She’ll be damned if she didn’t tear the organization down. She heard of the organization’s name. Despite the meagre hacking skills she had, she was good enough to join the Rising Tide. Why wouldn’t she? They had been the sole reason on how she was still here, still alive.

She forced the shudder down and curled in her bed, falling asleep to the fragmented dreams she had since Culver.

—-

The sun was just setting on the empty desert when Darcy woke up. The trailer was still warm from the hot afternoon, but she could taste the chill in the air as she wrenched the roof top window open, pulling herself up onto the roof. She watched the rays of sun cast an aureate glow on the radio station, the pale streaks of pink dancing with purple, slowly morphing into a dark blue.

When was the last time she had sat on a rooftop and enjoyed a sunset?

Darcy circled the rim of a coffee cup with a finger. Four years, wasn’t it? She isn’t where she thought she would be four years ago. She wouldn’t be where she thought she would be four years ago even if she had not pursued political science. But she did anyway, it was far too tiring to bicker with her father and her eldest brother in the choice of degrees.

She shook herself out of the memories. Apparently there was something in New Mexico that made her reminisce shit that she hadn’t done so for ages. Probably the slow pace and silence.

“Darcy! We’re leaving!”

“Coming!” She yelled back at Jane, sticking her head down through the window to find her hat. The hat was in a corner of the room. Darcy wiggled her fingers, sending a tendril of energy to the hat, pulling it closer to her.

‘ _Hello Cassandra. How_ did _you evade all those attacks? It’s so peculiar._ ’ _He sits on the chair opposite her, an ominous grin slid across his pale face. ‘The videos show clearly that the motion of the object should not have moved that direction. You_ do _know your physics, don’t you?’_

Her breath thinned and died; the hat falling onto the ground, behind the counter.

He’s not here. She’s not there anymore. Darcy repeated to herself. “My name is Darcy. Darcy Lewis.” She dug her nails into the back of her scalp, feeling the prickle of pain as she drew a long breath. “I am in New Mexico.”

Swallowing shallowly, Darcy swung a foot through the window, landing lightly on the linoleum floor and swiped the hat off the ground. This time, instead of using her powers, Darcy simply tugged the window close and left the trailer.

“So the Tessa emission has been cycling down. If we go north-west, we would be exactly where the storm hits. Now there’s an aurora on the desert, the particle counter has indicated that-”

Darcy sounded conversation off, sliding herself into the driver’s seat. There was a map on the passenger seat, not that she needed it either. Jane and her had been driving down that direction so many times over the last three months that she could _probably_ drive to and fro asleep - probably.

“It’s here,” Jane said. She tapped onto the keyboard, making sure the calculations were correct. “Wait for it.”

Erik sighed, staring at the empty sky.

The silence was killing her. Darcy tapped her fingers on the wheel. Just like the night before… Culver. Something to distract her at least. “Can I turn on the radio?”

“No.”

Darcy couldn’t fault Jane, but she needed something. Pulling her phone out, she read through the conversations of her friends before noticing the mirror had something weird. Something really weird. It was bigger and brighter than the Auroras that Jane had been chasing. “Jane? I think you want to see this.”

“What is that?” Jane looked at it in disbelief, joined by Erik.

“I thought you said it was a subtle aurora?” Erik exclaimed.

“GO!”

Darcy jerked the car into maximum throttle, stabilizing the van with her power as the van dipped and bounced off the ground. 

Oh God. _Was Jane serious about driving into that thing!?_

“Get closer!” Jane yelled, leaning through the window with her infrared camcorder.

“Right, good one,” Darcy pressed her foot down on the accelerator, feeling the burn on her arms as she fought to keep the van stable. Oh God. She had imagined a peaceful intern-ship out in the backwoods - or back _desert_ , to recover from Culver. Sure, she might have gone through the ‘ _I am a vigilante’_ phase, but that was on her own terms. There was no fucking way she was going to die for someone else for something she didn’t even understand!

Darcy laughed a mirthless laugh. _Dying for someone’s research, just like-_

A sudden explosion burst not even a hundred yards away. _Fuck this shit! NOPE_! She spun the wheel around.

“What are you doing?” Jane gasped, jerking the steering wheel back on path towards the explosion.

“I’m not dying for six college credits!” If she was going to die, she was going to die on _her terms._ They can call her a coward for all they like. Darcy wrestled the wheel with Jane, the wheels on the van skidding on the sand.

All of a sudden, a silhouette slammed into the van and Darcy stomped hard on the brakes. The van jolted to a stop. “I think that was legally your fault,” Darcy gasped as she scrambled out of the van.

A man lay on the ground. His blond hair fanned out across the ground _just like that day_. She could feel the memory of him clawing to free from the cage she had trapped it in. The lump in her throat as she struggled to regain control of herself.

“Get the first aid kit!” Jane ordered, her near-hysterical voice snapping Darcy from the shadows of her nightmare. She spun around, hands fumbling beneath the equipment.

“Get a grip,” Darcy told herself, slapping herself across the face in hopes to pull herself from some breakdown. _Just breathe. This isn’t the lab anymore. Take a deep breath. You’re as safe as you can be in New Mexico._

Erik took the first aid kit from her trembling hands. “It’s okay. He’ll be fine,” he said.

Darcy nodded but it took all of her to clutch the door of the van, watching Jane and Erik bend over the large man. “Does he need CPR? Because I totally know CPR,” she snarked, trying to recover into the snarky her. Erik arched an eyebrow at her and she just shrugged, plastering a fake smile on her face.

The man was… not even bleeding. They had been driving that fast on a straight land. Sure Jane and her might have been wrestling with the wheel and that might have lowered the speed, but surely not by that much. He should be bleeding, broken limbs… something.

He staggered up, wobbling about as he searched the land for something.

“You all right?” Erik asked.

The man was so out of it that all he could do was say hammer. Was he like those _thing_ s in the lab? Darcy felt ice dripping to her core as she considered the possibilities. Her fingers curled around the taser she had bought after Culver.

“Yeah, we can tell you’re hammered. It’s pretty obvious,” she said, hoping to pull the man of whatever he seemed to be doing. Not only was he not bleeding, he was built like a ship, stout and muscular and towered over all three of them. There was _no_ way that he was anything _but_ those things. It would only be a matter of time that whatever cognitive impairment that the impact of the van had done to the thing would be fixed and then he’d kill them.

“Father? Heimdall? I know you can hear me! Open the Bifrost!” He yelled to the dark twilight sky.

 _Yep, now or never, while he’s still out of it._ She raised the taser at him. The taser wouldn’t kill him… probably. She had modified it, so there was no telling.

“You dare threaten me, Thor, with so puny a weapon?”

And then she shot him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m so sorry. I swear I’m not doing this on purpose,” Jane said to him. Darcy placed a finger on the vein of his neck, relieved at the strong pulse.
> 
> “Well he’s definitely still alive,” Darcy smirked. “This gonna be your way of hitting on him?”

“Name?”

Jane flickered a look at Darcy. “He said it was… Thor right?”

“T-h-o-r,” the nurse spelt out as she inputted him into the register. “And your relationship to him?”

“I’ve never met him before.”

“Until she hit him with a car,” Darcy said to the nurse.

“I grazed him,” Jane flashed her an acerbic look and continued on, “but she tasered him.”

“Yes, I did.” Darcy looked away as the nurse gave her a disapproving looks. Tasers weren’t exactly legal. Were they legal in New Mexico? Must remember to look up the law, she told herself.

Darcy flickered a look at the man in the gurney. Under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital, the man in her memories and this man were two vastly different men. Now that she had a time to breathe, she couldn’t help but feel silly. This man had long blonde hair that was more like the colour of butter or honey, Summers had a darker blonde that was cropped on the sides. Alex was big if she was comparing him to herself, but he was nowhere the size of this man, Thor.

Thor. Wasn’t that some kind of myth thingy? She slid into the jeep, happily letting Jane take over the wheel. Fiddling with her phone, Darcy clutched the sides of the jeep as Jane drove back manically to the lab, excited to print out the new data of the event that they had experienced.

“Well according to the daily news, it seems like there was a crater from that spot we found Thor,” Darcy told Jane.

“Damnit. I knew we should have stayed!” Jane muttered angrily. “We’re going after we print this round of data and-”

Darcy rolled her eyes, texting back to Betty, the waitress at the only other diner in the town. “Well we know how that’s going to go with all the redneck sharks circling it.”

Erik lifted a fuzzy eyebrow at her words. She rolled her shoulders laconically and elaborated. “The townies think Jane’s some spacehead all up there and loose with some screws. They like to give her a hard time. Think that’s why she had to get an intern.”

“I did not get an intern to get the rednecks off my ass, Darcy. It was for the research grant.”

“Thanks babe, that makes me feel even better.”

\----

Back at the lab, Darcy fell back into the rhythm of dissecting Jane’s results into individually placed printouts, carefully typing them onto the document that calculated Jane’s equations. She didn’t really understand the science but it was these moments where she felt helpful.

“Jane?” She called out, spotting the outline of a man in one of the pictures. “Hey! Check this out.”

Jane stared at it, her mind whirling with hundreds of equations and possibilities.

Darcy blinked.

They were going back to the hospital and they were going to just miss him - almost and the cup. He was going to break the cup. Crazy man. No, homeless man?

Darcy felt Erik’s light pat on her shoulder and she took a deep breath, letting herself return back to her body. How she hated her precognition powers. They were so pathetic that they barely did anything except be a nuisance at different times. Imagine having a vision during sex, or kissing. Not that she enjoyed either very much but she hated it when they happened.

“Wait for me!” She called out, hurrying to the jeep.

Her phone vibrated several times in a row as the the jeep peeled from the kerb.

_Big brother in your vicinity. What happened? - Skye_

_Did you see the hammer!? Those dudes in the black suits literally built a compound around it! See the picture I sent you! - Betty_

Darcy hesitated on her message back to Skye. Not that Skye was going to do anything, but the truth on what happened, should anything happen would set Skye on a fanatical pace.

_Not sure what happened. Will keep you in the loop - Darcy_

She tapped out and slid her phone back into her bag. The jeep lurched slightly as Jane drifted the jeep into the parking lot, hoisting herself out of the jeep without even checking if she or Erik were keeping up. “Come on!” Jane yelled at the two of them.

Darcy half jogging to keep up with Jane’s pace. She took in the mild chaos that seemed to have been left in the wake of them, the broken medical equipment, the security people. What had happened when they left?

The room that Thor had been in was empty. That did not surprised Darcy. He had been erratic before she tased him and if what happened after they had left was the result of him, she wasn’t surprised.

“I just lost my most important piece of evidence. Typical,” Jane said the moment they were back in the jeep.  

“So what do we do now?” Erik asked Jane.

Would he still be erratic when they found him? Darcy wasn’t fooling herself that Jane was going to let things be that way. She had been with Jane long enough to know that Jane would hunt him down. If Betty was right and that the Big Brother had swamped around wherever that Thor happened then Thor was going to be Jane’s only hope to getting her answers.

“We find him.”

“Did you see what he did in there? I’m not sure finding him is the best idea.” Oh Erik, Darcy gave him a rueful smile. All the danger in the world probably was never going to stop Jane from pursuing the truth.

“Well, our data can’t tell us what it was like to be inside the event, and he can. So, we’re gonna find him.”

Her premonitions weren’t wrong. It had been true so far. It told her that Thor wasn’t bad but her memories told her otherwise. The vicissitudes of her knowledge of the future and the memories of her past tore at her. She pulled out a new refill for her taser, snapping it into the taser to soothe the unbearable itch and if her finger shook a little, Darcy did not notice.

She was going to be ready as she could be, ready to help Jane. That was the only thing she could do to repay Jane for everything Jane had done for her.

“So we’re gonna look all over New Mexico, right?” There was that tone of dread in Erik’s voice. Darcy wondered if he regretted coming down to Jane’s lab at her behest. Probably.

“Exactly,” Jane replied and began backing the van out of parking lot.

Anytime now, anytime now. Suddenly the jeep jerked and Jane slammed her feet on the brakes. Darcy was out of the car before anyone else, staring at Thor in shock. She had expected Jane to find Thor at that point of time, but her visions hadn’t exactly told her that he was going to have the jeep backed into him. Seriously. Who’s stupid enough to walk behind a backing up vehicle? Perhaps this was Jane way of flirting with this man. Darcy hid a ghost of a smile.

“I’m so sorry. I swear I’m not doing this on purpose,” Jane said to him. Darcy placed a finger on the vein of his neck, relieved at the strong pulse.

“Well he’s definitely still alive,” Darcy smirked. “This gonna be your way of hitting on him?”

“Oh stop it!” Jane smacked her on the head and motioned to him. “Help me get him in the jeep, Darcy.”

“Ow!” She groused. “I’ll get the legs.”

\----

Clint didn’t like New Mexico. It had one bar, one diner and one hospital that was the smallest hospital he had ever seen. The little agents milled around him as he inspected the security protocols. The residents had complained loudly for several minutes but they had left.

There was nothing that seemed like a security risk. Nothing.

The woman got out of the jeep, her dark hair tousled by the wind that swept across the carpark. Her eyes scanning the road as she adjusted her parka. She looked different from his memory, different from the picture that Cameron sent him.

He watched her follow closely behind the man and the woman.

Clint knew immediately that something had happened to her,  happened to her during the years he left. He took in the way she seemed to hunch herself, made her presence unobtrusive. He had taught her those very skills, taught them to protect her from her father, her peers and her very bad choices of being a vigilante.

“What are you looking at?” Sitwell asked, adjusting his binoculars to follow his sight. “That girl’s pretty.” Clint shot him a warning look, a look that Sitwell clearly didn’t catch because he continued on. “Damn, l would tap that.”

Pushing the curl of anger down, he got up swiftly, the end of the bow _accidentally_ smacking the corner of Sitwell’s shoulder. Sitwell staggered backwards, swearing as he clutched his shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said even though it was the furthest thing from his mind. Whatever it was, Darcy was here and he was going to make sure it was contained. Lest she be dragged in as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes... this story is entirely un-beta-ed. If you're interested in beta-ing this story, let me know!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you mean, what am I doing here?” Darcy rolled her shoulders, holding her hands out. “I’m an intern for Jane. Was missing my six science credits so here I am. My brother doesn’t approve of me taking this internship but since when has he ever approved of me doing anything?” she blabbered snidely. “So that’s what I’m doing here.” She poked his hard biceps with a twist of her lips. “What _are_ you doing here? I think that’s the biggest question.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not going to lie. Typing the last bits of this chapter entirely on the phone killed me.

‘ _Thor_ ’ was sitting, eating the pancakes like it was the best thing he ever ate. Darcy hadn’t seen that kind of look, not since she made pancakes for Clint for his birthday. She allowed a smile to cross her lips, lifting her phone up to capture the moment. “This is going on Facebook! Smile!” She grinned, snapping a shot as he smiled awkwardly. There! She uploaded the shot onto her facebook. At least Edward wouldn’t think she’s sulking or anything. He never really did understood her anyway. Her eldest brother had always been too busy with his own life and chasing pussy; she had taken the backseat. He wasn’t bad, just that he very rarely fell into the protective elder brother that her roommates had always assumed he did. He just popped by her apartment a lot because apparently she had an affinity for cute roommates.

Thumbing across the keypad, she added the caption, ‘Cute dude for breakfast.’ That would at least get Edward off her back about finding a ‘steady’ for awhile.

“This drink, I like it.” _Thor_ grinned with his mouth full.

“I know. It’s great, right?” Because who doesn’t like coffee? 

“Another!” He yelled and threw the mug onto the floor, startling the three of them out of their own thoughts.

“Sorry, Izzy. Little accident.” Jane said quickly. She got up and picked up the pieces of what was the mug. The man sat there with a smug look, his blue eyes flickering over Jane as she snapped at him, “What was that?”

“It was delicious. I want another,” he replied like throwing a mug had been a normal thing. 

“Well, you could have just said so.” 

“I just did.”

“No, I mean, ask nicely.”

“I meant no disrespect.”

“All right. Well, no more smashing. Deal?”

“You have my word.” 

He beamed at her and Jane gaped at him for a moment before finding her voice, “Good.”

“Excuse me. Did you say there was a satellite crash?” 

Thor shot an amused look at Darcy who only quirked her eyebrow at him and as he turned his attention back to Jane who bickered with the two men at the counter, he spun his head startled towards Darcy again. “What are you doing here?” he asked softly, eyes observing Erik and Jane. Erik and Jane appeared to be deep in one of their science!discussions again, discussions that Darcy felt politely left out of, not that she wanted to be stuck in responding Jane’s occasional rhetorical questions, her oblivious questioning felt better than blondie’s blue eyes that seemed to pierce into her soul.

“What do you mean, what am I doing here?” Darcy rolled her shoulders, holding her hands out. “I’m an intern for Jane. Was missing my six science credits so here I am. My brother doesn’t approve of me taking this internship but since when has he ever approved of me doing anything?” she blabbered snidely. “So that’s what I’m doing here.” She poked his hard biceps with a twist of her lips. “What _are_ you doing here? I think that’s the biggest question.”

“I’ve no time for your petty games,” Thor grabbed her finger with a frown. “Bring harm to these people and I shall not be easy on you.”

“Harm?” Darcy scoffed. His grip was firm despite her efforts of freeing her finger, she found her fingers stuck in his grasp. “I don’t think how a lowly intern can harm them…”

Bending his head, he warned her, “This is my only warning.” Thor shook his head and released her finger, standing and tugged the shirt down. “Thank you for the sustenance. I must take my leave now.” He tilted his head at Jane and Erik, eyes pausing on hers. Darcy felt a crawl of chill down her spine. She didn’t know what exactly just happened or who Thor had thought she was, but it appeared that he thought enough of her to be a threat.

It wasn’t the first time and certainly not the last that Darcy wondered if the incident at Culver had changed her. And if it did, exactly what?

She watched the tall, blond man making his way out. Her mind wondering if the next time he saw her, he would consider her a threat.

\----

Darcy was sitting on the top of her trailer with her feet hanging down the side, watching the stars blink across the dark twilight sky. Despite the Big Brother coming to take Jane’s equipment, her research notes and all her hard drives away, strangely including her ipod, it almost felt idyllic. Below, she still could hear Jane raging on and on about the jack-booted thugs and her research. It could have been worse. Darcy knew first hand how much worse it could go and in spite of her outward rage, she had been relieved that they had not taken any of them for interrogation. 

She might have stopped being a vigilante after Culver, but through years of honed skills, Darcy could feel the small hairs on the back of her neck stand. There was someone - someone apart from the two goons in the dark van a hundred yards away - watching her. Her fingers almost twitched towards the daggers she kept in her boots, momentarily forgetting that she had stopped carrying bladed weapons since that day. She had to be careful. There was no telling who was watching her. Her heart thumped loudly in her ears as she forced herself to breathe normally. 

Was it _them_? Or were they the same organization?

She blew onto her hands, trying to relieve the unsettling itch. Surely they hadn’t tracked her all the way down to New Mexico? She had borrowed Skye’s help to erase her tracks when she fled Virginia. If anyone could make her vanish, it was undoubtedly Skye. Her bow was under her bed and to get to it she had to duck through the ventilation window and reach for it. Not that she had any arrows anyway. Trembling, Darcy wished she hadn’t given up carrying her daggers. With all the damned Big Brothers watching her, they probably wouldn’t attack her, right?

She was up on her feet the moment she heard the lightest of footfall behind her. The silhouette of a man stared at her, seemingly startled by her reaction, or amused, she couldn’t tell with the shadow in his face.

 _‘Come on Darcy. You’re the fucking Dagger that scared the shit out of the thieves in LA.’_

She thrusted her chin at the man. “Who are you and what are you doing on my trailer?” She demanded, glad that her voice at least belied her jittery nerves.

“Cee?” The man called out.

She hadn’t been called that since LA, since- “Clint?” She squeaked and flung herself onto him. He caught her, his feet shifting to balance both of them before they slipped off the top of her metal roof. Large warm hands wrapping around her waist carefully yet tightly. “You asshole!” She smacked him hard on the shoulder. “You left and you never wrote a single damn letter!”

“Sorry.”

“What are you-” her eyes slid to the van across the road. “You’re working for them, aren’t you?” Darcy pulled herself out of his grasp and shook her head. “Of all the Big Brother organisations existing, you had to pick the shadiest of the shadiest, didn’t you?”

“Shadiest of the shadiest?” He teased. “There’s absolutely nothing shady about Shield. What do you know about it anyway?”

She scoffed, “Puh-lease. The fact that I can’t google shit about it already means it’s shady as hell.” The fact that only a hacker of Skye’s level could hack into their servers and come out unscathed meant that it was far more shady that they led people believe. Darcy wasn’t going to tell him about her being in the Rising Tide in any case. If Clint had disappeared for so many years, his sudden re-appearance meant that it was no coincidence, especially not if he sought her out. “What do you want?”

“What makes you think I want anything?”

“Don’t take me for a fool, Clint Barton. You and I know that I’m no ditzy intern.”

“Look-” he held out his palms in a placating manner. “I’m really just here to meet you.” Slowly, he pulled out an ipod from his vest - _her ipod._ “I brought Noise. Figured you might want him back.”

“You remembered his name?” Darcy couldn’t help but beam brightly at the archer.

“Woman. I remember working really hard for that ipod and the first thing you did after you got it, was to paste that star on the back.”

“Well it’s kinda really slim! I didn’t want to accidentally drop it,” she pouted and plucked it out of his hands. Tugging him by his hands, she led him to the ventilation window. “Come on. I can make some cocoa.”

\----

She dropped heavily onto the counter instead of swinging herself onto the ground as Clint expected. There was something different about her. It was true that he hadn’t expected her to be exactly the way she was four years ago but not this different, not this off. As per his agreement with Coulson, he had received regular reports on her. He wasn’t surprised that instead of going to the community college or UCLA that was expected of her, she had moved across the country to be as far away as she could from her father. He would have done the same if he had a father like hers.

He paused, eyes lingering on where her hidden sheaths would have been. _Her daggers._ Her daggers were missing.

Clint trawled his eyes across her body, searching for another form of hidden weapon but there were none.This was Darcy Cassandra Lewis, the one who followed him all over the city at night against his orders; the one who learned to fight with him in the back streets of LA and carried blades in her sleeves when she was being bullied in school; the one who carried blades even though he told her that she had dealt with the bullies and she only raised her chin at him and told that there would be others. The report were missing things - large portions of it.

“I can feel you leering at me, you know?” she told him and raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re different,” he smirked at her, fading slightly upon noticing her body subtly stiffening.

“In a good or bad way?” She asked lightly.

“Not good or bad…” Clint temporized. “Just… different.” To be honest, he wasn’t sure that she _pretending_ to be a civilian was a good thing or a bad thing. Four years was enough a time to change someone.

There was a strange light in her eyes as she regarded him with clenched jaws as though considering her words. The act of that itself was peculiar. Cass loved to talk and snark and this silent woman who stood at the counter, stirring cocoa powder into the steamed milk barely seemed like her. 

“Cass? What happened?” 

She flinched badly at those words, nearly dropped the spoon in her hand. “I don’t-” she swallowed shallowly. “Go… by… C-C-a-”

Clint pulled her in, rubbing circles on her back. “Shhh, it’s okay.” He was going to punch the agent that had been put in charge of monitoring her then tell Francis so that he would string the agent up and make the agent wish he was never born. “If you don’t tell me, I can’t make it better, Cass.” 

She shuddered at the exact moment he said her name. He hadn’t been overthinking it. Something had happened and Cass was afraid of her own damn name. Oh, he wasn’t just going to punch the agent, he was going to make the agent wish he was never born, get Coulson to demote the useless incompetent bastard. Francis could have him if there was anything left of the agent.

“Darcy. Is that what you go by now?”

She grinned the fakest smile that wouldn’t even fool Sitwell. “Yea. I like Darcy now.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She’s doing her internship in DC for a company called Blue Media PR. She was dancing her feet away at a club called Lagoona until four. Went home with a blond guy.”
> 
> “How sure are you of that?” 
> 
> “Considering I just checked? Very?”
> 
> “Then tell me why she’s sleeping in front of me right now in New Mexico.”

“Why on earth does a Political Science student needs to have _science_ credits?” her brother asked the moment Darcy told him that she was going to New Mexico for an internship for her six science credits so that she could graduate.

“You ask me-” She juggled the phone to the other shoulder as she dumped clothes into boxes. “So I’ll leave the key with Helen and I’ll trust you’ll come up with some arrangement with her to bring my boxes back?” Darcy wasn’t going to bother keeping the apartment for the six months she was going to be in New Mexico. She didn’t have enough attachments to the area or the apartment to even bother.

“Is Helen the pretty one? She’s still single right?”

“No. Judy’s the pretty one and Judy has been with Melissa for a year already. Can you _please_ stop hitting on my roommates? It makes things really awkward.”

“ _Ex-_ roommates. And it’s not like I hit on all of them.” 

“Raven, Melissa, Judy, Miranda, Helen, Yvette, Liu Qi, Naoki, Ami. Do you need me to continue?”

“No. That’s fine,” he replied quickly. “So Helen. Text me her number and I’ll arrange with her.”

“Edward-” she called out just as he was about to hang up.

He asked in a saccharine tone, “Yes my dear little bratty sister?” 

“If you flirt with Helen or hook up with her then dump her or do something to her that makes me embarrassed to ever meet up with her again, I _will_ tase you, string you by your thumbs and then slowly kill you.”

“Noted on the graphical death threat,” he chuckled. “I got to go now. Call me when you reach your new hellhole.”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“You know they don’t actually do that, right?” 

“And your point is?” she smiled.

“I should have never let you watched Full Metal Jacket,” he muttered and hung up.

Darcy chucked more stuff into the box before, sinking onto one of the boxes, she rubbed her face tiredly. The city held too many memories, the unpleasant ones rising above the pleasant ones. She rubbed her arm feeling the crawl of her skin. There was a pulsating feeling beneath her skin like her skin didn’t belong. She choked back a sob, trying to stop herself from clawing her skin off but failing.

“Darcy!” Gentle hands pulled her hands away from her arms, holding firmly onto them. “Darcy, it’s gone. You’re not there now.” Skye wrapped her arms around Darcy, keeping Darcy’s hands pinned down as she rocked her back and forth, encouraging Darcy to follow the sound of her voice and her breath.

“She okay?” 

“Yea, she will be.”

And in-between the gentle humming fro, Helen and Skye’s slow deep breaths, she nodded against Skye’s chest.

Evening was chasing the afternoon away when Darcy woke. Skye was lounging on the seat beside her, feet propped up on the bed with a sandwich in the mouth. She paused in her typing, pulling the bread from her mouth and asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Peachy,” Darcy replied, sitting up, running a hand through her hair and noted the fresh bandages on her arm. “How long was I out?”

“Two hours. You hungry? Helen made some gimbap, your favourite if I’m not wrong. Not sure what’s so appealing about rice in a roll though.” Skye made a face and Darcy stuck a tongue out at her.

“Helen’s gimbap’s the besssssst…” She yawned and rolled her shoulders. 

“Listen, Darcy…” Skye started and hesitated. 

“You’re leaving a protocol on the area I’m going to, aren’t you?” 

Skye clasped Darcy’s hand. “You understand right?”

She turned her hand and squeezed Skye’s hand; Darcy understood Skye’s intention. If it hadn’t been for Skye, she would still be in there. Even the best intentions can be distasteful. It had creeped her out when she found out how long the lab had been tracking her. She wasn’t just a random target. She had been cherry-picked and that meant that they were invested in her for whatever reason it was; the lab was gone in the aftermath of the Hulk but that didn’t necessarily meant the people behind the lab were.

“You don’t have to pretend that you’re okay, you know that right?” Helen said, cutting into her thoughts.

Darcy only looked up at her, a sad smile spreading across her face. “But I have to.”

Between the strange crawling on her arms and Helen’s oddly worded answers, Darcy knew there was so much that her friends weren’t telling her. They thought she was going crazy. Darcy knew she wasn’t.

\----

Darcy woke to the sound of Clint arguing a one sided conversation. Peering blearily at him, she watched him pace up and down, gesticulating wildly as though he was on a phone. It would have made sense if he was holding a phone but he wasn’t.

“Clint Barton!” she growled. She swung her feet off the tiny bed, striding angrily at him. “Tell me that’s not a fucking earpiece that you’re talking through now.”

Darcy wrenched his head to the side. Had she not been looking for it, she would not have noticed the concealed earpiece.

“You said you were here to _meet_ me.”

“Cee-”

“Bring back Noise, figured I would want him back.”

“Aww no. Come on Cee-” 

“Said you weren’t here with ulterior motives and you were wearing a fucking earpiece the whole fucking time.”

“Cee-” He gave her a pleading look, catching her hands.

“Don’t Cee me. I don’t go by that anymore. You don’t even have the privilege of calling me that anymore.” She shoved him away and flung the door open. It would have been more dramatic if it weren’t a tiny little door that was right beside them. Nevertheless, the sudden pouring of sunlight in her darkened room had a certain dramatic flair to it.

Clint hunched his shoulders with a sigh. “Cee-” he begun and swallowed at her glare. “Darcy. Listen. It’s not like what you think it is.”

“Out.”

He hopped down the stairs, looking up at her. Darcy hadn’t noticed it in her dimly light trailer but with the sun pouring down on him, she noticed how the four years seemed to have aged him far beyond his years. There was a scar down his neck and a faded one down his arm. 

“Darcy, what’s-” Clint stared at the scar across the curve of her left breast.

She tugged her cardigan closer around her. “None of your fucking business.”

Darcy slammed the door shut and slid against the door, pressing her head against knees. She should have figured that the four years would have changed them both drastically. He came here to spy on her, spy on her! Or was he here for another reason?

Pulling herself up, she cracked between the blinds. Outside the men in black were still there in their SUV. Different dumb and dumber though. Didn’t all Big Brother organisations look and dress the same? There was no telling whether these were the same ones as her or if Clint was working for them.

Darcy clenched her fists, heaving a tremulous breath. “I am not a victim of my past,” she whispered to herself, forcing herself hands to stay rigidly on the sides of her body in despite of urge to scratch her skin out. “I am not a victim of my past.”

She would be safe with Jane until they leave and if anything were to happen, it would alert Skye. That’s what the protocol was for. 

She would be safe as long as she stayed here.

\----

When Cass fell asleep halfway through their chat and instead of heading back to base, Clint decided to stay and figure what exactly happened. He did a quick search of the room, coming up with only a taser in the drawer and the bow that he had given her under the bed. The bow was useless without any arrows and there had been no arrows hidden in the room. No hidden compartments, no daggers.

She was still the same Cass that he remembered, or would have been, had it not been for the subtle signs that she was just pretending to be her. Forgoing her preferred name for the other name she hated wasn’t that unusual. Many people did that when they transitioned from child to adult, but panicking every time he accidentally called her Cass was a whole new different level.

He had seen enough to recognize trauma and knew enough to not call it out without trying to work out what happened. Which meant he had to grill Klein. Clint pulled his cell out, dialling a number he memorized by heart from the sheer number of times he dialled it. 

“Klein,” the man answered sleepily.

“Cameron, tell me about Darcy Cassandra Lewis.”

“What? Clint... it’s a Sunday and isn’t it like… six over there?” he yawned loudly. 

“Cameron.” If it wasn’t Cameron that was falsifying the reports then someone or something else was. He didn’t want to suspect Cameron. Clint trusted Cameron and that spoke volumes. Francis trusted him too, so they couldn’t be both wrong, or could they?

He heard Cameron slide off his bed, feet plodding across the hardwood floor, the chair squeaking as he sunk into it. “Ok ok, give me a minute,” Cameron muttered. Clint heard Klein tapping rapidly in the background, running whatever program he used to check on Cass. She wasn’t a main priority, it could have been weeks or months since Cameron last checked.

 _Please let him be right. Please let this be a simple overlook._

“She’s doing her internship in DC for a company called Blue Media PR. She was dancing her feet away at a club called Lagoona until four. Went home with a blond guy.”

“How sure are you of that?” 

“Considering I just checked? Very?”

“Then tell me why she’s sleeping in front of me right now in New Mexico.”

Klein swore, his fingers typing furiously away. “I don’t know Clint. The facial recognition and all fits. I swear I’ll fix this. I don’t-”

“Also something happened to her in Culver, or after I left her in LA. Find out and tell me.” He hung up even before waiting for Cameron’s reply and stared blankly at Darcy. Should he doubt Cameron? Clint rubbed his face tiredly. He knew he should call Francis and tell him what was going on, but what was going on? Logically, he would doubt Cameron however his gut instincts were telling him that that was wrong and considering he had survived so long because of his gut instincts, to doubt that would be odd. Could it be a hack? Wouldn’t Cameron have noticed it and fixed it earlier?

His hearing aid crackled with Coulson calling for him. “Agent Barton, explain to me why you’re not wearing your earpiece. I had to have Agent Avery hack into your hearing aid when you failed to answer your phone.”

“Sir, remember the meaning of being off-duty? Which is why I’m wearing my hearing aid and not my earpiece. I believe I’m not on-duty until after ten, sir.”

“Yes, but when you decided to sleep with one of our marks that changes everything.”

“I am _not_ sleeping with Cass,” he flipped a glance at the sleeping girl, satisfied that she was still sleeping, Clint turned back to his rant. What irritated him even more was that now that they hacked his hearing aid, he couldn’t even turn it off. Well, he could just remove it, but then he wouldn’t be able to hear Cass if and when she woke.

“Cass?” Coulson deadpanned. “Like _the_ Darcy Cassandra Lewis.”

“Yes. I’m not sleeping with her. I saw her, I met her and spoke to her. And we just talked until she fell asleep. Now get off my damned hearing aid.”

“She’s supposed to be in DC.”

“That’s precisely my point!” Clint threw his hands up in exasperation. “What is she doing in New Mexico and more importantly, you met these marks. You should have noticed it. Why didn’t anyone notice the discrepancy?”

“What are you trying to imply, Agent Barton?”

He dropped his voice. “You know what I’m trying to imply here, sir. And we’re going to fix this.”

“Clint Barton!” 

He swung his head at her angry voice

“Tell me that’s not a fucking earpiece that you’re talking through now.”

“Aww, fuck.” 

He backpedalled into the wall, reluctantly leaving the trailer as she went on her tirade. That was until he saw the scar just across the curve of her left breast. Clint had seen a lot of scars in his remarkably short life and that was a surgical scar. Another thing in the growing list that was missing from his reports.

“Darcy, what’s-” he started, the fearful look in her eyes shot worry through him.

She tugged her cardigan closer around her, conscious of his stares. “None of your fucking business,” she snapped, slamming the door in his face. 

Clint turned away, blocking the early morning sun from his eyes. Agent Lee and Agent Grant were still in the SUV across the road, watching the labs. They nodded, acknowledging his presence though Agent Grant raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he shot at him when he reached them.

“Sure,” Grant chuckled. “Whatever you say.”

“She’s my-” he paused, searching for the words that would explain their relationship. “Sister.”

Sister wasn’t correct, close but not quite. She was someone that he couldn’t imagine never meeting, never having in his life again. Even with all his aloofness, Clint never could quite keep the grin off his face when he looked at her photo. A pang of loneliness and guilt overcame him as he considered her. Perhaps staying away from Cass had been the wrong thing to do. There was nothing he could do about the things that had happened to her, but he could do better from now on.

“You gonna be alright?” Lee asked. “Must be hard to see your sister under this surveillance.”

“I thought it might be better if it was me doing the surveillance actually. They would more… cordial to me.” 

He could get Coulson to reassign him if and when all this blew over. That was possible. 

\----

There were twenty-four of them; Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega.

There were twenty-four of them and only the six of them were conscious enough to speak - Ellis, Alex, Jonathan, Brian, Lynn and her. 

There were twenty-four of them and in the end the only one left was her.

The memory of the one month was etched into her memory. The fire under the skin, the pain that blasted through her body with each passing day. 

They were special, just not special enough. 

Darcy turned the shower on, letting the icy water drench her. She was missing a puzzle piece here, but what? 

_‘Cassandra, sweet Cassandra. You are such an interesting subject, you don’t realise it yet. I didn’t believe Geoffrey at first. How scientifically impossible you are, yet here you are,’ he cooed as he attached an IV line to the port that they had surgically placed into her. ‘This here. Is the compilation of our finest.’_

_There was an eerie gleam in his eyes when he looked at her. Lust? Jealousy? Adoration? Darcy didn’t know what to make of it except that frisson of fear that skittered down her spine when he stroked her cheek and murmured. ‘I can’t wait to see what you’ll turn out to be, Cassandra.’_

She knelt in the shower. Outside she could hear Jane muttering angrily to Erik, the sounds of the trucks driving by. She counted the number of forks she owned, the number of drawers there were in her room. Grounding herself took a lot more time than it had taken her when Skye or Helen was around but she managed to do it herself.

Yes, she was missing a piece of the puzzle. Thor thought she was a threat, why? Who was Geoffrey? Why was she cherry-picked?

Darcy got out of the shower and dressed simply, making sure the sweater hid the scar this time. 

“Darcy?” Erik called out.

She was ready for whatever the day was going to bring her… or whatever the remainder of the day would be, seeing it was already three in the afternoon. With all the equipment and research stolen, it wasn’t like Jane could do any work. 

“Yea?” she replied, stepping into the empty lab. 

“I think Jane just went after Thor.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda know I'm really slow on updating. I'm really trying my best to keep it regular.. 〒▽〒 please don't be mad at me.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am as of now, deciding to chuck all canon out of the window. Mostly because I’ve gotten fed up with needing to re-watch Thor over and over again. Eugh. Main events will still be the fairly similar, but exact dialogue and actions might not.
> 
> Tags and changes to stuff have been added too.
> 
> I think I should mention that a lot of the questions in this arc will not be answered in the arc. Probably part 3 or part 4. It was meant to be a standalone arc but well, Darcy didn’t want to let that to happen. I’m pretty much merging part 3 into this part 2. I’m still hoping I can end with 15 chps, but I’m starting to see that in order to achieve that I’m going to have to write a lot longer for each chapter. Eep.

 

Clint slammed his hand on the desk. “Do not ever hack into my hearing aid again.”

Coulson looked at him blandly. “So Cassandra,” he merely said, steepling his hands. “I spoke to Klein. What’s interesting that the intel he gave was correct. If we searched for Darcy Cassandra Lewis through cameras, it brought us back to the same person. Cassandra is invisible to electronic cameras.”

He threw a file across the table. “Everything else that had been digitalized has corrupted or removed. This is the only digital file left on Cassandra.”

Clint flipped the file open with just three pieces of paper on it. Her birth cert, her driving license and her school intake form. “That can’t be right.”

“Whoever this Cassandra is, to be able do this means she is like Francis.” Coulson levelled him a look. “We need to bring her in.”

“No. No fucking way.”

“Agent Barton. I’m not asking-”

“No. You take her in and I’ll be damn sure that Francis will find out about this.” Clint jabbed the file angrily, his voice dropping low. “We know that Francis is far too valuable to lose.”

“It’s not like he can leave either. Neither can you. If she can do this, then she’s a potential threat to be assessed, or more...”

It was like Francis all over again, only that Francis chose to join Shield. There was no way Cass was going to come quietly. “Are you even going to figure out why she did this? It’s not like she would do it on a whim.”

Coulson sighed. “Your recalcitrant attitude isn’t helping her case, Barton. We’ll just be asking her some questions. There’s no big deal in that.”

Clint scoffed and shook his head, completely done with the conversation. He’s been around the block enough to know that _a few questions_ never meant that. A few questions would lead to an interrogation then a full blown investigation and then afterwards, she would be pressured to join or face a life of imprisonment. He spun around, flinging the tent door aside. “Let’s be clear here, Francis and I might not have a choice to leave, but it doesn’t mean we have to make it easy.”

Storming out into the makeshift headquarters, Clint stopped in the middle of the compound where the sun poured liberally down on him and tilted his head towards the blue sky, running a hand down his face. Not the first time in the last four years, Clint regretted how things turned out. He closed his eyes, remembering the job he took that had gotten him caught. It had been a stupid mistake; a stupid rookie mistake that landed him in prison, not that they could keep him in one. The day he wanted to hightail out of there was the day that Shield arrived, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. It really wasn’t much of an offer - the choice of death by noose or working with them.

Clint wasn’t going to be much of a use dead, so he _chose_ to join them. Hadn’t wanted Cass to know the shitstorm he went through after his first few missions and decided to cut off his communication with her.

 _We’ll fix this._ He rubbed his forehead then pulled his phone out, dialling quickly.

“Lewis. Busy in the lab at the moment-” the voice answered briskly.

“Fran. It’s Cass.”

“Clint?” Clint heard the clatter in the background fade with a loud swoosh as Francis stepped out of the lab. “What is it?”

“Something happened in Culver. I don’t know what, but something is going on here.”

“Like what?”

He pursed his lips, eyes flickering to the agents in the distance. Coulson would have known that Clint would have called Francis immediately, he trusted Coulson with his life many times but perhaps it’s time that to re-evaluate that. “I don’t know. Let’s we meet up. Thursday at the darts club.” The emergency code that Clint hoped to never use, burnt like acid on his tongue.

“If you must,” Francis replied, hanging up immediately.

There was also something odd about Francis.

\----

Darcy pulled her backup phone out the moment Jane had told her about Thor being caught. There were limited hacking abilities on her phone, but they’d have to do. Shield knew exactly what she had done.

_Shit, shit, shit._

“Skye?” she squeaked, answering the phone the moment it rung.

“What the fuck is going on over there?” Skye demanded.

“Look an alieny god dude landed here and well-”

“Wait, wait. Hold on.” She heard Skye took a long breath and started again, “I called because apparently someone has been poking around my protocol on your decoy and Raven wasn’t very pleased when they took her into custody. I’m not even sure how they thought Raven was you, because... Well... Anyone who saw your birth cert would have immediately noticed that you weren’t Native American. But _wow_ , Alien God? What the fuck? Why am I hearing about it now?”

“Well ‘cause yesterday we thought he was some kind of crazy dude!” She heard Skye tap rapidly across the keyboard. “Don’t Skye, Shield’s here.”

Skye laughed, “And that’s supposed to stop me? Shield’s a pansy. They like to act like they’re so big and tough when they’re really…” She trailed off, pausing in mid rant. “ _Really Darcy?_ What is that weak ass hacking? I’m sure Miles and I taught you better than that.”

“You try hacking on a shitty iPhone in under 1 minute and let me know how that you fare,” Darcy grumbled.

“See! Three minutes and I’m already in their surveillance. _OOOO_.” Skye whistled lowly.

Heart scrambling in her mouth, she blurted out. “Please tell me you’re not coming here.” She hid her face in her hand. “Oh god, you are! Please don’t. Seriously. Don’t!”

“But your alien god is _soooo_ handsome.”

“Skyeee-” She groaned, “I don’t even know if he’s staying.”

“Well, it looks like he’s following your Selvig. So.. I’m guessing it’s a yes.”

“Great.” Darcy wasn’t sure if he was going to warn her off again.

“You don’t sound pleased. And we still haven’t settled the issue on why they would suddenly follow your decoy. What happened over there?”

Darcy stood and walked to one of the glass windows, pressing her head against it. Should she tell Skye about what Thor said to her? _No, that would freak Skye out even more._ She bit her lip, running her tongue across her chapped lips. “I met Clint.”

“That’s good isn’t it?”

 _Like hell it was._ Clearly he ratted her out to the people he was working for, if what Skye said was true, _and it probably was,_ then Clint wasn’t the guy she remembered anymore, blue-grey eyes looking up at her, the lines she didn’t remember him having.

_“Jump Cee!” he called her from the other building._

_She looked at across the gap and back at him. “I hate you Clint!”_

_“You’re the one who wanted to follow me around, stopping crime.”_

_She stuck a tongue out at him and eyed the gap nervously. Taking several steps back, Cass took a deep breath before running to the gap, using her powers to launch herself across the gap - just across the gap. She wobbled a little at the edge and the warm grip on her bicep pulled her off the edge._

_“There see, not so difficult right?” he smiled._

_The next time was easier then it became second nature. He was always there for her, always watching her back._

“He’s working for the big brother organization.” Now she couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ even trust her to watch her back.

“That explains things. Will you be alright?’

Darcy nodded, forgetting momentarily that Skye couldn’t see it. “Yea. I will be.”

“Let me know if anything changes.”

“I will,” she promised.

\----

Francis looked at the phone thoughtfully and pressed his lips tightly together. Had Clint begun to notice things? He laughed a mirthless laugh and slipped the phone into his pocket, slapping a hand across the security pad.

“This serum isn’t working as well as it did on subject Omega,” the man said to him as Francis re-entered the lab.

Francis turned his attention to the man struggling against his restraints on the chair, his skin flared in blotches of dark purple, mouth locked in an open scream. “Purple patches, huh,” he muttered, tapping rapidly on the tablet. “We didn’t have that on any of the previous subjects.”

The man sighed, folding his arms. “If only we still had the files on Omega. So far she’s been one of our two successes. If Sigma was able to absorb and shoot energy, there’s no telling what Omega is capable of. Oh that stupid Banner. If he hadn’t been too damn proud to take your assistance, the whole stupid clusterfuck in Culver wouldn’t even have occurred. _You_ should have been the one leading the team.”

“Geoffrey. I have no interest in Banner’s serum,” he said mildly.

“Yes yes, of course. Ours is far superior.” Geoffrey mused over their new subject, watching the said subject dragged out by the guards. “Do you think you could fix it? Ever since we lost the formula after Banner, we have been having failure after failure.”

Francis espied Geoffrey watching him from the corner of his eyes. “We should be getting close,” he said stiffly.

“I don’t want close Francis. I want success. We need Omega, don’t we? We tracked her down to DC, we can take her in.”

“I won’t lie that having Omega would make things a lot easier, but it’s not that simple. Each subject has a special DNA code, in order for the serum to be a success, we need identical DNA to align the serum properly.”

“Twins?”

Francis rolled his shoulder laconically. “Perhaps. We could visit that avenue. But right now, subject 29 just gave us a new set of data. Instead of getting a past success, we might surpass it.”

“Something far better than Omega, in other words.” Geoffrey grinned widely at him.

“Precisely.” Francis smirked back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a new beta!! Yay! Thestanceyg is fantastic :D Hopefully not I'll stop struggling with Darcy and put out chapters faster :(

Darcy was nursing a beer when Thor joined her. Jane had fallen asleep at the campfire with a blanket tucked around her, and Erik was asleep in her bunk so that left her the only other living person awake for Thor to talk to. She wasn’t even sure if Thor was going to talk to her, not when he practically threatened her the last time. It was too late to pretend that she was asleep anyway, not when she had been tapping her finger on beer bottle to some inaudible song playing in her head.

“Lady Jane says I owe you my thanks,” he started. “It was you that assisted in my escape from the... base.” He spoke halting like the words were unfamiliar to him or perhaps that he didn’t feel like she warranted his thanks. “I do not understand. Why did you help me?”

“Why does anyone help anyone? Because we want to,” she answered when he didn’t respond to her rhetorical question. She caught his blue eyes with hers. There was a look on his face that Darcy couldn’t decipher in the dim moonlight and the occasional flickers of the campfire.

“Your kind has never liked Asgardians.”

“ _My_ kind?” Darcy snorted her beer. “What am I? Alien?” She cast a disdainful look at him. “I’m pretty sure the last time I checked I was still human.” Her heart stuttered at her last few words, but she refused to give in to her insecurities and the growing doubt at the back of her head. The way Helen looked at Darcy after she had removed her port, the way Helen had been fascinated with her blood. There must have been something interesting about her after her ordeal. She had been so busy dealing with her emotional backlash that she hadn’t enough energy to ask. Darcy had decided that it was not life-threatening since neither Helen nor Skye had brought it up to her. Resisting the urge to bring up her hand and stare at it, she fixed her eyes on the rim of the bottle, tightening her grip on it.

“Yet your words seem to contradict what you feel,” Thor said.

“I don’t know how _I_ feel.”

“You don’t know.”

She lifted her eyes in resignation. “I’m not sure if I want to.”

“I do not think I understand. Do people not desire to know where they came from?”

“You seem to assume that the _thing_ that I am is something that I was born with or was voluntarily turned into when the truth is probably the furthest from that,” she ground out, sinking her elbows onto her thighs. “I don’t believe any of us were volunteers.” It had to be the experiments that changed her; Darcy had come to convince herself. She had seen the things in the labs, the creatures - aliens, that could not be anything human. Things existed out there. It would have been a shock in the lab, or something classifiable as shock, if she and the others not been overly concerned with the procedures they were doing - the procedures and the pain - and rather where the serum the scientists were injecting them with was from; or perhaps she had not been entirely human to begin with. Her powers, though pathetic, were not something most people had.

There was a look of sympathy and understanding in Thor’s eyes at her words. It wasn’t a look of one trying to understand her position; it was one that had experienced and knew. Darcy blinked. She opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to find the words that could pose the question without dredging up his memories but nothing came.

“It was roughly three hundred years ago,” Thor answered the question she could not bear to ask. “There was an enchantress called Lorelai.-” He cast his eyes to the inky dark sky above, taking on a faraway look as he remembered. “She did things to me and my friends but it was not torture. Not physical pain at least but it doesn’t make it any less painful. To have things done against your wishes.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Darcy emptied her bottle, tossing it into the trash can. Throwing a bottle to Thor, she popped open another and took a long drink from it.

“Lady Jane tells me that it was you who fell me.”

“-fell you?” Darcy gave him a mocking eyebrow. “I tasered you if that’s what you’re asking.”

“With lightning.” He grinned eagerly. “This taser is something you wield as well?”

Despite knowing he was probably getting the wrong idea, she smiled, rapidly steering the conversation from their previous subject.

\----

Clint didn’t like the whole situation any more than Coulson did. The files sent by Cameron were as he said; tampered with and hacked far beyond his abilities was what Cameron said when he sent them over. The program that had been crawling across the web and across several different systems, including theirs, was well-hidden and appeared to have a mind of its own when he attempted to take it down, like a mini-AI with capabilities to analyse attacks and to prevent itself from being taken down. Cameron couldn’t take it down, not on his home PC and not under the limited time frame that he was given by Clint and Coulson.

The files, on the other hand, were an epitome of innocence. Had he not known they were hacked, Clint wouldn’t have been able to discern it. But he knew, so the only questions were now why and how. Questions that no one except probably Cass knew.

He had taken over Agent’s Grant shift, watching over Cass into the wee hours of the night. Not that he was keen on using the sound amplifiers to listen to their conversations; he had every intention of turning it off when his shift started. However Thor’s statement had caught his attention, and as Cass conversed with Thor, it held with an alarming sense of fear growing in his stomach.

Cass, his little charge, was taken by someone and had things done to her, what Clint didn’t want to delve into it. At least not right now and not when he hadn’t had all the facts. It wouldn’t do any good for anyone - especially him - to act on the pitiful amount of facts. As it was, a bubble of rage stewed through him. He had to be calm. Calm and coherent enough to navigate through the mess. There was no changing what happened, the only thing he could do at this point was to make sure no one took her again.

He was still on the rooftop, when Miller came to take over Lee’s shift in the morning. He had been grumpy enough for Lee to warn Miller on annoying him and Miller offered coffee as a peace offering. Clint drank the coffee, watching Cass sleepily spoon eggs into her mouth.

“Hey Barton-” Agent Miller called out. “We got activity.”

Clint shot up, eyes peering from over across the rooftops. “Is there a Renaissance Fair in town?”

Agent Miller snickered and handed him the walkie-talkie. “Call it in.”

“Hey Base,” Clint said, eyes still following the quad that strolled across the town uncaring for the cars they stopped in their wake. “We’ve got a Xena, Jackie Chan and Robin Hood here.”

“A what?” Sitwell’s voice cackled over.

“Said it like I see it. Xena, Jackie Chan, Robin Hood annnnnd… a giant Gimli?”

“Gimli. Like the dwarf.”

“From Lord of the Rings, except bigger.”

“Except bigger,” Sitwell deadpanned and sighed. “Stay with the target. We have activity.”

“No shit, Sit.” Clint jumped across the rooftops, positioning himself for a clear shot if he needed to take down the four unknowns. Cass was in the lab, smiling and listening to Jane, Erik, and Thor bickering.

The soft curve of her lips reminded him of the time when she was in high school. Her eyes were so bright and her carefree laughter when he was around made him want to stay around all the time. He missed her terribly when he had to leave on _jobs_ and always felt like he could never get enough of her when he was around her _._  It was only then Clint had begun to realise that he had stopped seeing her as a his little sister and more of a woman that he’s grown feelings for, though Barney would disagree and pipe that he had never seen Cass as a little sister.

“Well, they seem friendly,” Miller said as they watched _Robin Hood_ kiss Cass’ hand.

Clint grated his teeth. “He looks like a frat boy. _Don’t I look dashing with my stupid goatee?_ ”

“That’s the big brother speaking,” snarked Miller, taking a sip from his coffee. Clint glanced at Miller, his eyebrow twitching and was reminded of how long he had been working with Miller when Miller correctly interpreted his almost blank look, answering the unasked question.  “Oh yes, Lee and Grant told me about that too.”

All of a sudden, dark large clouds loomed across the distant skies. The large cloud funnelling down onto the earth, ground shaking beneath their feet. “Is it just me or is there a large shiny robot…” Miller trailed off, pulling the walkie-talkie up. “Base? Come in, base.”

Clint watched the robot walk towards them, sure he had taken robots before, but even in his untrained eyes, he could tell that that robot was far more advanced than anything he had ever seen - Stark’s included.

_Fzzzzt- fzzzt-_

“Base? Nothing.”

“Looks like we’re on our own.” Rising to his feet, Clint swung to check if Cass was still safe in the lab. His heart lurched as he saw her running down the streets _towards_ the robot. Four years later and she _still_ didn’t have an ounce of self-preservation. Muttering furiously, Clint looped a cord around the lamp post,“people run _away_ from danger, not _towards.”_

“I’ll keep trying to contact base!”

Clint rappelled down the building, running towards Cass. He ran across the pavement, launching himself at Cass into a dive as he watched the laser beam cut across the buildings.

“Cee!”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re okay.” He wrapped his hands around her cold hands. “You’re okay. Whatever you do, stay here, you got it? Stay here.”
> 
> Darcy pushed her spectacles up furiously. “And you’re going to go out and get yourself killed?”
> 
> Clint shook his head. “It’s my job.” He placed a hand on her head, the way he used to do when she was a child, eyes softening. “Stay here. Where you’re safe.” Without waiting for her reply, he took off, hiding car to car, inching closer to the robot.
> 
> Like hell she was.

They rolled for a bit to behind a car. Her hands clutching the vest of the man who had just knocked her out of the beam’s way.

It was just like the last few moments of the lab. The beam, so oddly similar to Summer’s. Darcy gulped deep breaths, staring into the man’s - Clint’s, blue eyes.

“Are you okay?” Clint cupped her face, quickly assessing her.

No, she wasn’t, but it wasn’t the time for a breakdown. “Clint?” she sucked a breath, pulling her hands off him.

“You’re okay.” He wrapped his hands around her cold hands. “You’re okay. Whatever you do, stay here, you got it? Stay here.”

Darcy pushed her spectacles up furiously. “And you’re going to go out and get yourself killed?”

Clint shook his head. “It’s my job.” He placed a hand on her head, the way he used to do when she was a child, eyes softening. “Stay here. Where you’re safe.” Without waiting for her reply, he took off, hiding car to car, inching closer to the robot.

Like hell she was. She wasn’t a coward, had never been one. Darcy peered out. Clint had shot an arrow onto the side of the building, shooting explosive arrows at the robot was not having much of an effect; directly in front of the robot was Beardy, Jumpy and the man who kissed her hand smashing and dodging the robot’s beams. She ducked as one of the beams cut through her car, smelling the singe of her hair as it passed across her.

_“Sigma, Omega. Your mission is to kill each other.”  The voice broadcasted across the room._

_The moment he heard those words, Alex stopped eyeing the room and stared at her. Words of hope that they had whispered to each other from their cages stilled on her tongue. The uneasy truce that they had between each other had expired the moment their own survival had been challenged by the others._

_Cass tried to pull up words, anything to dissuade him but even those was lost from her. Then the need to jump forward made her body move even before her mind had registered it. The smell of hair singing, the sound of concrete crumbling behind her, roused the training that they had ingrained in her._

It had been one of the many fights she was forced to fight death though thankfully had not been forced to kill him. Summers, Summers. The small part of her brain reminded her of how she had left him behind in the labs. Gritting her teeth, she shook herself out of the memory, letting the meagre training that she had been coerced into undergoing come to the foreground of her mind.

Hands pushing against the hot bitumen, she pulled herself off the floor. Two stores down was the pet store that she had spent a considerable amount of time ogling at the puppies and judging by the fleeing passersby, they had been abandoned. She might have left Summers in the labs, but she wasn’t going to let another innocent suffer - innocents including puppies.

Darcy was running across the pavement, hair flying as she skidded to a stop, flinging the door open. The pet shop first. She raised a hand, the locks on the cages broke and fell, doors swinging open when she pulled the second door open. The puppies were jumping out, following her excitedly, then merging into the fleeing crowd.

Puppies saved, one down and two to go.

She turned, watching Clint pull Sif off the robot just as the beam roared through where Sif had been standing.

The beam reminded her of the labs. She and Summers had been the last two that were still relatively sane before their last injections. Summers had the beam after their eighth injections and had turned almost pliant to the doctor’s orders after that. Darcy couldn’t fault him. It was too, for her, a moment engraved in her mind, a moment where her world had changed entirely.

_“Today and forevermore, you all shall never be normal again!” he laughed excitedly._

_Her body jerked as the aureate liquid slid into her veins._

_Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop._

_Her mouth was wide open, jaw locked and unable to make a single sound. Her fellow captives around her were screaming, but she was muffled, drowning in the growing whirlpool by her own pain. Her skin itched like it was trying to peel itself off her and there was something moving at the back of her head. Cass could hear its claws echoing in her mind. She called it Shadow._

She had already known her pathetic set of powers were underwhelming and almost useless. Even before Culver, she had been able to see the future - a few seconds into the future, but it had helped her win fights. Then Culver happened and the odd sensation at the back of her head became palpable, but it wasn’t until now that she realised it wasn’t a shadow or a darkness lurking in the depths of her mind. It was Hope.

She heard it call to her, whispering the secrets of the future. Back then, Darcy had been a child, only sensing the soft nudges, following them blinding from point to point. They tried to make her into something, give her abilities like they did to Summers, never realising she already had them. Ripples shifting through the fabric of essence, hitting her like a five-tonne truck.

_Thor lies on the ground, dead in Jane’s hands. The Golden city crumbling after generations of reign. A man with golden horns stands at the throne, his red eyes gleaming in the darkened lights._

The vision warped, showing her another.

_Darcy throws herself at Thor, pushing him to the ground. The beam hits her instead, killing her instantly. Thor clutches her body, the hammer arriving as Thor realises his mistakes, becoming Thor once again. He defeats the Guardian, defeats his once-brother. With the guilt of Darcy dying for him, Thor takes over the throne, sentences his brother to two hundred years of torture. He is no longer the proud, brazen Thor, he is no longer the Thor that swore never to rule Asgard the way his father did, he has become exactly what Odin envisioned him to be - merciless and harsh ruler._

She drew a ragged breath, seating her mind within her mortal body again. No, those were the choices to not do. The clarity of her choices asserting themselves as Darcy picked through them.

“Brother, whatever I have done to wrong you,” a look of defeat crossed the once-Asgardian face. “Whatever I have done to lead you to do this, I am truly sorry. But these people are innocent. Taking their lives will gain you nothing. So take mine, and end this.” He held his arms out in surrender. Whether he truly thought that Loki would spare him, Darcy couldn't tell.

For an instant, Darcy could see the robot swinging its arm, the odd clang as the wind whistled against it. Darcy dug her heels into the ground, feet fueled by her powers, rapidly eating across the gravel and broken glass. She vaulted the wrecked car, landing light with a tendril of her power holding her well enough that she lost neither momentum nor balance.

Darcy hadn’t used her powers since Culver; not this way and not this extensively. The small doses had made her panic, made her think of the initial moment when they found and interrogated her. But now that she had, her powers felt different. It wasn’t a small coil at the pit of her stomach, it was reservoir - a lake, that sang as she dipped into it.

Her hand outstretched as she flung herself forward, Darcy pulled from within herself pouring every bit of what she had known she had and throwing it at the robot. It hadn’t exhausted her as she had expected it would, no, instead she felt energised by the trail of energy she had expended, like a marathon runner who had just completed his warm up.

The robot staggered back as the arm landed on her shield, Thor catching her around her waist when they staggered back several yards from the sheer strength of the robot, toppling onto the ground.

“Lady Darcy, this is not your fight,” Thor told her gently.

She shook her head. Smiling, she patted his cheek. “Why does anyone help anyone? Because we want to. You are only human now, but as you said, I am not.”

Darcy turned back to the robot. “I am Dagger, and it’s time I stopped being afraid.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Darcy?” Clint knelt down beside the hole, raising a trembling hand to check her pulse. There was no way she could have survived that. It felt like his whole world was dimming around the edges. He might not have been present in her world much for the last four years, but hearing her exploits numbed his raw wounds. He took a breath placing a finger under her neck. Stilling a ragged sob that threatened to escape, he looked at Jane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m ecstatic to post chapter 8! We’ve finally made it to the end of series set up! What does that mean? Oh, it means things are going to take a large spiral downhill from here. All the subtle hints of things that have happened and are going to happen, we’ll be seeing from now on. Chapter 9 will have not one, but two new players to the game as well the very formal introduction of our main villain.

The robot opened its face, sending a beam directly at them. Somewhere in the background, Darcy could hear Clint screaming for her, Jane crying out in horror but those weren’t important. She let the world fall away from her senses, focusing only on the heat of Thor behind her and the robot’s movements. Hope sung to her tapping, filling her with the knowledge of things to come. Paths of her choices split up before her in the back of her head.

She leapt forward, sending her power to deflect the beam. Darcy landed in a roll and sprung up at the feet of the robot. The robot was slower than Summers, its beam was slower than Summers too, less versatile but stronger. She had fought tooth and nail with Summer with only her telekinesis, afraid of what the darkness that used to be her reliable battle companion, but now she was not scared. Propelled and strengthened by her powers, Darcy kicked the robot’s foot out, twisting the robot’s arm around.

The robot hadn’t reacted like a normal human would have, she hadn’t expected it to, anyway. It turned its arm around, gripping tightly on her arm and threw her into the building. She sent her power behind her, absorbing the impact. Darcy was on her feet even before the concrete had stopped crumbling around her. Shaking the dust from her hair, she stepped out from the debris.

“Darcy!” Jane screamed, held back by one of the Big Brother’s agents. Not Clint.

Sif and the warriors three were back in the fray, dodging and striking the hulk of metal without so much of a dent. They were never going to defeat the robot that way. Darcy took in the sight of Thor. Still mortal and still unable to fulfil the requirements of Mjölnir.

Clint was on her right as she took a step towards the fight. “Cee!” He grabbed her by the elbow, dragging her back. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” There was a dribble of blood from her scalp and the iron taste in her mouth told her that she had bitten her lip when she crashed into the building, but she was fine. Her powers were still going strong, throbbing with the pulse of her blood. Her mind busy navigating the lines of choices to even note the look on Clint’s face.

“You were just thrown across the street, smashed through two walls. There’s _no_ way you could be fine,” he hissed.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, snatching her elbow from his grip. Clint placed a hand on her waist, hoping to give an impression of her leaning against him. No one would fall for that, his brain sneered at him. She placed a hand on his chest, eyes glancing at him. Try as he did, Clint could not help the start of surprise when he noticed the gold flecks in her eyes.

He was never going to get Coulson from taking her into custody, he thought helplessly. His hand hovered at the loose curls that escaped her beanie.

“I _have_ to help,” she said simply. The row of objections dying in his throat. How could he tell her not to? Her powers, the things she gained from wherever was the only thing that had halted the robot. Part of him wanted to say fuck the world and cover her in bubble wrap, part of him knew it was naive to think that the display of power she had already exhibited would go unnoticed.

Shrugging his hand off, Darcy made her way towards the robot. Gimli threw Jackie Chan into the air just as the robot swiped from the left, smashing Gimli into the building. She swung her arms; somehow, stopping the robot’s arm from hitting Jackie Chan that had landed on its shoulders. Jackie Chan smashed his mace through but like Xena’s sword, it did not even slow its movements.

Clint didn’t expect it to. His arrows even piercing through the grooves of the armour had failed to slow the robot down. He watched Darcy jump, landing in a forward roll, dodging the robot’s arm. It was almost as though she knew the robot’s movements. Quickly, she sidestepped to the left, narrowly missing the beam. She flung a hand out, blocking the arm.

Could it be? Clint loosed another arrow into the groove between the arm and the shoulder. Darcy had improved tremendously when he taught her how to dodge attacks. She had improved far more than a normal human. Back then he had conveniently ignored it. It wasn’t like she having powers was the first that would have popped into his mind.

“Hogun!” Thor cried out. “Please, my friends-”

Clint watched in horror, the robot tipping over, falling onto Darcy.

“Darcy!” they cried out.  Clint swung onto the ground, stumbling as he jumped off too early to run to where the robot had crushed its entire arm.

“Brother. Lady Darcy was innocent-” Thor fell to his knees. “How could you?”

Suddenly the loud humming filled the air, the sight of a black dot flying towards them. He turned his head, hand reaching out to the abrupt appearance of the hammer. Clothes magically unfolding around him as he gripped the hammer, lightning striking again and again on the same spot.

Thor threw the hammer at the robot as it tried to send another beam at them, knocking it cleanly off its feet. Circling his hammer around him, Thor leapt into the air, conjuring a tornado around him and the robot, protecting his friends from harm.

Clint couldn’t care less about what was happening just above him. All he could see was the woman he had watched growing up lying in a tiny crater so still.

“Darcy?” Clint knelt down beside the hole, raising a trembling hand to check her pulse. There was no way she could have survived that. It felt like his whole world was dimming around the edges. He might not have been present in her world much for the last four years, but hearing her exploits numbed his raw wounds. He took a breath placing a finger under her neck. Stilling a ragged sob that threatened to escape, he looked at Jane, swallowing shallowly with a tight smile. “She’s alive.”

Darcy took a shallow breath before turning her body to face the sky. “Fuck. That hurt like a bitch. I think I broke my boobs.” She raised a hand, and Clint pulled her into a sitting position.

“Damnit. I thought I lost you, Cee.” He held onto her tightly, feeling her breath against his neck. “I couldn’t imagine-”

\- A life without her.

His world had already revolved around her before he had realised it and he wouldn’t change a thing. Clint took a deep breath and pulled away, blinking slowly, watching Darcy scrub the dirt from her face. He didn’t hesitate. Leaning forward to capture her lips with his, he buried his hands in her messy hair. She didn’t respond for a moment, and Clint thought that she might not feel the same for him, but she moved forward to recapture his lips when he pulled away, sucking his bottom lip to let her in, mapping his mouth with her tongue.

“Does that mean you like me?” Clint grinned.

“No, I just kiss everyone,” Darcy smirked cheekily back.

“Lady Darcy, are you okay?” Thor asked, his blue eyes giving her a once-over.

She shrugged, letting Clint sling an arm across her shoulders. “I saw it coming and blocked it the best way I could.”

“You fought valiantly,” Thor laughed, clasping her forearm.

“You too, big guy! Now go! Janie’s waiting for you!”

Thor turned, catching Jane’s eyes as he strode over to her. Clint looked down at Darcy. Coulson would be all over her the minute he sees the surveillance. Miller was missing too, perhaps he was back at base, reporting. He had to prepare Darcy and hope for the best.

“Darcy, listen to me,” Clint spun her around, tilting her head up to look into her eyes. “They had surveillance cams all over. The thing you did, they’re going to know. They’re going to ask questions about it. You have to be as vague as you can be, never admit to anything. Do you understand?”

“You mean your organisation?”

He nodded. “I’ll try to get you out as fast I can but-”

“Is it just video surveillance?”

“Yes, I hope Miller didn’t see it. I don’t know.” Clint swept his gaze across the broken buildings. “I can try to catch him. Stop him. But if you admit to anything, they’ll make you join them…”

The words ‘or else’ hung over them heavily. “Did they do the same to you too?” Darcy curled her hand around his, clutching it as he nodded and leant his head against her.

“Francis too,” he murmured.

“Is that why you two couldn’t contact me?”

“Francis is different-”

His head shot up at the sound of wheels skidding across the gravel. Coulson tilting his head at them before turning to Thor.

“Excuse me, Donald?” He stalked towards Thor, staring with his ‘I’m not pleased with you’™ look. “I don’t think you’ve been completely honest with me.”

“Know this, Son of Coul. You and I, we fight for the same cause, the protection of this world. From this day forward, you can count me as your ally if you return the items you have taken from Jane.”

“Stolen,” Jane interjected.

“Borrowed,” Coulson corrected. “Of course, you can have your equipment back. You’re gonna need it to continue your research.”

Thor glanced at Darcy, Clint fought the urge to bury her in his arms and attempt to hide her from the world. “And the continued freedom of Darcy,” added Thor.

Coulson furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t think you understand-”

“I do not think _you_ understand,” Thor bent towards him, lips murmuring words that even Clint couldn’t catch. Coulson nodding in assertion to whatever Thor was saying.

“Wait! I need to debrief you!” Coulson yelled, but Thor was already zooming off into the sky. “Shit.”

Darcy wiggled from his grip, motioning to the four warriors. “Come on! We have a truck! We can take you.”

Clint watched the truck fading into the distance and focused on the person standing beside him.

“Miller tells me that she saved the puppies during the chaos.”

“Yep.”

“Instead of fleeing like everyone else, she decided to stick around and _save puppies._ ”

“Yep.”

Coulson sighed. “Are you going to only give me one worded answers?”

“Probably.”

“Interestingly, her clothes were pretty ruined for someone who _just_ saved puppies.”

“You need to ask a question.” Clint knew Coulson’s tactics with leading on questions. Determined to ease Cass from anything too divulging, Clint stuck to one worded answers. He wasn’t going to give Coulson anything that he didn’t already know.

“Did she join the fight?”

So Coulson didn’t know. Clint wondered if the surveillance cameras were disrupted during the chaos. The tech at base _had_ been complaining about the interference with the magnetic energy. It was possible that the cameras didn’t manage to catch anything. “No.”

“Agent Barton. Are you lying to me?”

Clint gave him a feral gleam of his teeth. “No.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S: The original ‘broke my boobs’ ™ line is from [Oz](http://ozhawkauthor.tumblr.com/) which is a [fantastic oneshot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2658407/chapters/5941346) and I couldn’t pass up not using it.


End file.
